Equal Access means Equal Opportunity

Our PILOT attempt at enabling equitable access to learning that is informal, inter professional, collaborative and easily accessed from anywhere, anytime and through any device the student chooses

This was a course on Medical Professionalism and had students from Africa, the South Asian subcontinent , Europe and Australia. The students were from a varied inter-professional background — doctors, nurses, head of NGO’s , students. The contributors included subject matter experts from the Mayo Clinic, Professors from South Asia and Australasia.

The internet had suddenly enabled a nurse in rural Ghana to access education from the best minds in the field who were thousands of miles away — at her own time and in the device of her own choosing.

The internet truly enables empowerment. Could this be one of the many solutions to foster a more equitable world ?

Douglas Beal kicked off TED@BCG with a look at how growth in terms of GDP doesn’t always align with growth in terms of citizen well-being. Photo: Paul Clarke/TED

Growth is usually a good thing. For a person, it means more wisdom; for a business, it means more profit; for a country, it means increased prosperity. But growth has a darker side too: aging, a sense of impersonality, waste and pollution. At TED@BCG — the latest TED Institute event, held on June 30, 2015, at Old Billingsgate Market in London — speakers explored both edges of this term. In three sessions of talks, curated by Juliet Blake and hosted by Margaret Heffernan, speakers shared their insights on what it means to move “Onwards & Upwards: In Pursuit of Growth.” Below, a taste of each talk.

After opening remarks from Rich Lesser, BCG’s President and CEO, great moments from the talks in session…

It’s not about being pro-choice or pro-life, says Aspen Baker. She shares a different way: pro-voice. Photo: Marla Aufmuth/TED

Aspen Baker had just graduated from college when she found out she was pregnant. She was sitting at the bar where she worked and her co-worker, Polly, asked if she wanted a drink. Baker had to confess, “I’m pregnant. I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet.”

Baker grew up in Southern California — her parents were “surfing Christians” and religion was a central theme of life. “As a kid, the idea of abortion made me so sad that I knew if I ever got pregnant, I could never have one,” says Baker.

“And, then I did.”

Polly’s openness helped her, says Baker. “Polly gave me a very special gift: the knowledge that I…

In this article Jonathan Haber argues that the numbers could be misleading and ends it with a provocative last word

Before my MOOC launched, I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation of how many students I’ve ever had in the classroom, since I started teaching in grad school. And the number I came up with was, approximately 1400. The number of students who completed my MOOC is approximately equal to the number of students I’ve had in the classroom in my entire career. The number of students who were active in the MOOC (Total Active Students) turned out to be approximately an order of magnitude more than the number of students I’ve had in the classroom in my entire career. Contemplate that.

In the very least, I suspect , MOOC”s enable equitable access to online education for inquisitive souls across geographic and institutional boundaries . And if you happen to be an inquisitive soul from under- privileged background — that could only be a good thing for you.

And maybe in one those souls we could just discover the next Steve Jobs